Powerless
by Bren Gail
Summary: It never mattered to her illness what her I.Q. was or the amount of prestige her name once brought in the intelligence community. Mental illness strikes where it will and it scares Spencer Reid, because even super hero geniuses are powerless. Reid/Diana. Reid/Morgan. Two Shot.


_Dislaim...disclaim..disclaim...neither the characters or Criminal Minds are mine..._

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**Powerless**

The bitter brisk wind formed gooseflesh on the exposed skin of Spencer Reid's elegant face and long neck. The tips of his ears were viciously red and long past numb, but the coloring and feeling matched the rest of his exposed skin. Although, he was dressed for the bitter Virginia winter, he was cold under the thick wool trench coat, and the scientist within him, recognized that he was on the verge of hypothermia, but he could not find it within himself to care. He hoped futilely that if his body was numb, his mind would become just as so. He knew that, often times, the mind thrives where the body dies, but grief and fear had the power to bring the most powerful, the most intelligent of men down to their knees. And, that was exactly where Derek Morgan found his friend of ten years, on the cold wet ground in front of Diana Reid's white granite tombstone.

As Morgan quietly stepped out of the large black Suburban, he pressed his lips together, and with his right index finger pushed the slipping dark sunglasses up on the bridge of his aristocratic nose. He shuddered as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped a few degrees. He slipped his leather glove clad hands into the front pockets of his designer black slacks. Out of habit, he subtly glanced both ways before he crossed the cemetery road. He hunched his shoulders slightly inward and forward as he bowed his head. The cold temperature quickly forming a thin layer of gooseflesh across his face, over his shaved bald head, and thick muscular neck.

Morgan took a deep breath, the cold shocking his system, but no more so than the shock he felt as he astutely recognized that his friend, his brother in arms, was losing control, no, had lost control. Twigs snapped under his boot clad feet and the soles imprinted the manufacturer's logo in the mossy mud. He paused a yard away from the younger man and shifted his weight from one leg to the other as he grimaced. What Morgan witnessed was not something he would have ever contributed to Spencer Reid, but Morgan knew that circumstances arise, situations occur that place someone in someone else's role. Character traits tend to retreat when deeply hidden hurts and fears materialize.

His calm, composed, and collected friend was having an emotional breakdown, because Reid had refused to grieve, had refused to acknowledge the feelings that his mother's death several months ago had provoked; refused to revisit feelings that had been buried deeply within his psyche as an adolescent forced into adulthood entirely too soon; refused to touch the feelings that were barely exhumed when his father had reentered his life, however briefly a few years ago.

Morgan stood diagonally a yard behind Reid for several minutes as a sort of commanding comfort, but when he heard Reid acknowledge his presence, he took three large strides and stood to the younger man's right.

"Morgan," Reid rasped, his tone of voice raw and weak. "Why?"

Morgan placed his left hand on Reid's right shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. Reid cried out in frustration at the lack of a verbal answer from his friend, but he was more frustrated at himself for not having the answers to his questions, for not having the correct questions to search for answers.

"Tell me, how?" Reid continued heartbrokenly, "How do I," He blinked, his long eyelashes had formed small crystals, his tears had frozen. He shuddered in both trepidation and low body temperature.

Morgan bent his knee and placed the other knee on the ground then the bent knee, too, found itself on the cold wet ground. The moisture of the combination of snow, ice, and slush on the ground successfully soaking the knees of the slacks.

"Hey," Morgan murmured as he wrapped his strong arms around his hurting, exhausted, freezing friend, "Hey, shh. You just do what you do and you'll get through this, we'll get through this, Pretty Boy."

He placed his chin on the top of Reid's head as Reid moved toward the soothing embrace, placing his frozen wind burnt cheek against the warm solid chest of Derek Morgan.

"I promise," Morgan vowed.

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**Thank you for reading. Next part coming soon.**

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**_On Another Note,_**

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